


Run

by pinkskyline



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25527595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkskyline/pseuds/pinkskyline
Summary: Five years after the fall, Hannibal is apprehended in St. Petersburg, alone. What makes Jack suspicious is that Will Graham shows up in Baltimore a month after Lecter is transferred from Russia. Maybe everyone was right, and they were together all along. But how can Jack get them to admit it? Jack tries to find proof they were together while hoping desperately his actions aren't playing into their hands...
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 18
Kudos: 149





	Run

Jack took a deep breath before he started speaking, looking around the conference room at the people he’d worked with for years, and the ones he’d invited to hear what he had to say because it was particularly relevant to them. Zeller and Price were sitting with some other forensic specialists, blissfully unaware of the unsettling news he was about to share. From the somber look on Alana Bloom’s face, she had a better idea of what was happening.

He cleared his throat and the room went silent. “Some of you may know that a month ago Hannibal Lecter was apprehended in St. Petersburg and transferred to the care of the state psychiatric facility in Baltimore where he was held for three years before escaping five years ago. He has refused to cooperate with police, and will say nothing to the doctors at the facility about where he was or what he was doing.”

Jack took a deep breath, then went on: “Will Graham, who was assumed dead after security footage recovered from the house where Dolarhyde was killed showed him and Hannibal Lecter plunging from a great height into the sea after killing Francis Dolarhyde together, has been seen in the Baltimore area.” He paused. “Now, many people have told me over the years that the only thing that made sense was that Graham was in on Lecter’s escape, and that they had some secret plot to run off and were together somewhere. I never believed it. Those of you who worked with Will might have a difficult time imagining him joining with someone like Lecter as a kind of partner in crime, or as Freddie Lounds would have it, murder husbands.” Jack paused as a slight titter of laughter went around the room, then continued, “But it can’t be a coincidence that after five years of nothing, of no word to any of us or to his family, not even his wife or stepson…after five years of assuming Will Graham was dead, he appears in Baltimore a month after Lecter is apprehended.”

Price spoke up. “Can we arrest him for what he did to Dolarhyde? We all saw the tapes.”

Jack shook his head. “It was clearly self-defence against a serial killer who killed children, even if he and Lecter orchestrated the situation. I don’t think a DA worth their salt would agree to prosecute a case where the jury would be so firmly on the killer’s side, no matter what video we have or how many agents died in Lecter’s escape. We have no real proof either of them were in on that aspect of Lecter’s escape—it could have been Dolarhyde acting alone. No, what we need to do is find some proof of what Hannibal Lecter has been doing all this time, and if Will Graham was with him. And we need to find a way to understand Will’s state of mind right now.”

Alana leaned forward. “What if I asked Will to speak to Hannibal for me? Manufactured some justification for it. The only reason Hannibal agreed to help with Dolarhyde was because Will said please, so we have reason to believe he would still have influence over Hannibal. We could ask him to see Hannibal for some reason, and record the interview. If they’ve seen each other in the last five years, we’ll be able to tell by how they interact with each other at the hospital.”

Jack nodded. “Will and Hannibal always worked well together. Some might say too well. We could ask Will to persuade Hannibal to consult on a case. Though perhaps we should ask him without Will’s intervention first.”

Zeller frowned. “What if he agrees?”

Alana leaned back in her chair. “I’ll look over the proposal. I know what he’d agree to and what he wouldn’t. I’ll make sure he’d balk at it.”

“And I’ll approach Will,” Jack said.

As he looked around the room he saw doubt on some faces. Jack knew what people thought, that he was too close to the situation and that his bias towards Will would mean he wouldn’t get the right information. Ask the right questions. But he knew some things that they didn’t. That Will had gone into the encounter with Dolarhyde prepared for everyone to think he’d helped Lecter escape. That he’d been prepared to let Lecter kill Dolarhyde, and then he’d agreed to Jack’s suggestion that he kill Lecter afterward. As far as Jack was concerned, the tapes showed exactly that.

Yes, he’d been more involved in Dolarhyde’s death than they’d discussed, and he seemed pretty cozy with Lecter before pushing him off the cliff, but he _had_ pushed him off the cliff. For all they knew, Will had been with Lecter the entire time, but against his will. There was precedent for that. Or he’d survived the plunge but had been afraid that Lecter would kill him if he realized he was alive. He’d pushed him off a cliff. The last time Will had offended Lecter, he’d tried to cut Will’s head open with a circular saw and eat his brain.

Yes, he was suspicious of Will Graham in all this. There was definitely reason to be. But they had no proof of anything.

A few days later, a report came in that Will Graham had been spotted in D.C.’s National Gallery of Art. Close enough that Jack could pretend to be out for the day and meet Will coincidentally, but far enough that a lunch break peruse of the art was unrealistic. Jack decided he’d have to be honest. Will knew he wasn’t much interested in art—although to be fair, when they had been friends, Will hadn’t been either.

Spending five years with Hannibal Lecter might have fostered an appreciation of the arts, but then so might anything. For all Jack knew, he’d liked art all along.

Jack drove to the Mall and parked, cursed the parking rate, and walked up to the door. At least museums in the Mall were free. He texted the security guard who had tipped off his office—a recruit who worked there on her days off. She let him know what floor and gallery Will was in, and Jack grabbed a floorplan and made his way there.

He found Will standing in front of a Walter Sickert painting. He wondered if Will knew that Patricia Cromwell had accused the artist of being Jack the Ripper twenty years prior. Was Will trying to tell him something? But how would he know Jack was on the way? And what, if anything, would he mean by it if he was trying to say something?

It couldn’t be a reference to the Chesapeake Ripper.

Will looked good, if a little slimmer than usual. The scar on his cheek had healed evenly, without distorting the symmetry of his face, and was as faint as the one on his forehead now. He was wearing glasses, and his hair was a mess of curls. His clothes were somewhat nicer than Jack was used to seeing on him—a grey cashmere sweater and black pleated slacks, the pockets of which he had his hands plunged into. His leather shoes looked well-polished and expensive.

Jack had somehow forgotten how _harmless_ Will looked. He looked like he should have taught literature, not profiling. Was that why Jack had trouble thinking of him as Hannibal Lecter’s partner in crime?

Will glanced over as Jack stepped beside him, and Will did a double-take. “Jack,” he said. He didn’t smile the way Jack was used to, but his expression was friendly enough. “Visiting the art gallery on a Tuesday afternoon? For shame. What would the taxpayers think?”

Jack chuckled, and extended his hand, which Will shook briefly. Jack tried to recall if Will had been reluctant to shake hands as a rule, but couldn’t remember. He knew he had trouble with eye contact, but he didn’t seem to be having trouble with that now. “I heard from a little bird you were in the museum. I wanted to see you. Find out why you cut off all contact.”

Will eyebrows drew together. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Jack shook his head. “Not really. There’s a café on this floor. Can I get you a coffee? We can talk?”

Will shoved his hand back in his pocket and shrugged. “Sure.”

He followed Jack to the café where Jack bought them both a coffee. They sat down, and Will stirred his coffee without saying anything.

“Well?” Jack asked. “What have you been up to? What should have been obvious to me?”

Will slouched in his chair. “I tried to kill Hannibal Lecter. If I came back, or contacted anyone I cared about, he might kill them or me. He already tried to kill Molly and Wally.”

“Did you know he survived the fall?”

Will shrugged. “I didn’t know for sure. But if I did, he could have. He was a lot stronger than I was, even if he had been shot.”

“So why are you back here, then? Isn’t proof that Lecter is behind bars additional reason to stay away? After all, he attacked Molly and Wally from that same hospital. Hell, you sent someone after him from there. You know just because he’s behind bars doesn’t mean you’re entirely safe from him.”

Will barked a humorless laugh. “Gee, thanks. Way to reassure me that Lecter is probably still going to try to kill me. Yeah, I know it’s not a hundred percent. But I still feel safer now than I did when he was at large.”

Jack smiled. “Me too.”

Will picked at the empty sugar packet on the table. “Has he talked? He hasn’t threatened me or anything, has he?”

“He’s been uncooperative. On the whole. Alana Bloom said it was like trying to talk to a brick wall, and you know he would always talk to her, before.”

Will frowned. “Alana Bloom. That’s a blast from the past.”

“She’d love to see you. We missed you, Will.”

Will nodded, then looked at the table. “Well, I suppose I should let you get back to your day,” he said, but he didn’t move to leave the table.

Jack ignored this attempt to end the conversation. “What are you doing for work these days, Will? You look sharp.”

Will looked over at a table with an arguing couple and smiled slightly at them. “Oh you know. This and that.”

Jack frowned. “I really don’t.”

Will looked Jack in the eye and then quickly looked away. “Is this an interrogation?”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “Why, have you committed a crime?”

Will’s attention had wandered again to one of the other tables.

Jack wasn’t sure what he found so fascinating about everyone at every table but the one he was sitting at. He sighed. “Can I have a current phone number, in case we need to contact you for any reason?”

Will’s gaze bounced back to Jack’s face. “Why would you want to contact me? I’m done with all that murder stuff. Completely done. I don’t want to do any profiles. None of that.”

Jack flashed a quick grin. “What if Hannibal makes threats against you? I would like to be able to keep you safe, Will, if for nothing else, then for old time’s sake. We both know if Hannibal is holding a grudge he’ll take it out on you as soon as he can. Conversely, if Alana gets through to him and he tells her he bears you no ill will, I can contact you and tell you that.”

Will grumbled a little, but in the end turned over his cellphone number.

Jack stood. “Thanks Will, good chat.”

Will looked at the floor. “Yeah, thanks for the coffee.”

Jack walked out of the museum towards his car. He had been so sure that Will Graham could not be Hannibal’s companion. But somehow, with the Sickert painting, and his evasive answers about what he’d been doing—if he’d just been in some little town fixing motors this whole time, why not just _say_ it?—now he wasn’t so sure.

He called Alana Bloom as he drove back to Quantico, and told her what he’d said, and what Will had said. She didn’t seem to find it as suspicious as he did.

“Will is odd, but he’s direct. He’s not going to pussyfoot around something like that.”

“But it’s been five years. Possibly five years he spent with one of the most manipulative, intelligent serial killers in history. That might change someone.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s smart enough—emotional intelligence-wise—or subtle enough to skate the edge of a conversation like that. Will can barely get through normal social interactions without saying something too true or blunt for the person he’s talking to. That—what you’re describing—sounds more like Hannibal than Will.”

 _Yeah, that’s my point_ , Jack felt like saying. He didn’t. He’d tortured himself enough thinking back to things that Hannibal had said—truths he’d told—but in such a way that no one would catch on or believe it. He didn’t feel like admitting it, even to Alana, who had surely done the same. “Will’s determined not to do any criminal profiling. That was pretty much the only thing he was direct about.”

This seemed to cheer Alana. “All the more reason why you’d need Hannibal’s insights, then.”

Jack allowed Alana to talk about her son for a while after that, but then they hung up and he was left alone with his doubts. Will wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He had done some questionable, downright weird things, but he wouldn’t run off with Hannibal Lecter. But perhaps Hannibal had somehow brainwashed him. Manchurian Candidate stuff. Hannibal had done it before.

Or maybe he’d done it right the first time.

Jack felt overwhelmed by questions. He returned to the office and shared what he’d learned with Zeller and Price, and then asked them if the team had found any answers to where Hannibal and Will had been for the last five years, either separately or together.

“You know, this isn’t really the kind of thing we do,” Price said.

“You find serial killers. You think if Will and Hannibal were touring the world together they weren’t dropping bodies?” Jack asked.

Price’s eyebrows flew higher. “Um, no. I hadn’t thought about it exactly like that.”

Jack ran a hand over his head. “Just tell me what everyone’s found. Where was Will Graham? There must be records of his travel. Tickets. Passports being scanned, that kind of thing. Right?”

Zeller shook his head. “No, not really. Did Will actually tell you he travelled outside of the country? Because there’s no real evidence of that. He’s a pretty reclusive guy. Maybe he moved into the Appalachians with a herd of dogs.”

Price nodded. “That does seem like something he’d do. His hobbies are fishing and liking dogs. You think he’s become some kind of urbane travelling serial killer? Based on what?”

Jack leveled at flat look at Price. “His other hobby is being obsessed with murder. Or did you forget that one?”

Price was cowed, or more likely pretended to be cowed, and went back to his computer screen.

Zeller pointed to his own screen. “Will made several purchases on a credit card and cash withdrawals in a town in rural Virginia a few weeks before Dolarhyde. Maybe he was setting up a place to go in case things went bad. A cabin, or whatever.”

Jack frowned. “Maybe there’s no record of Will Graham travelling because he did it under an assumed name.”

Zeller shrugged. “If he did, we can’t prove it. Maybe if we had one point of comparison. A place we knew he was, then we could get access to CCTV, passport scans, or social media postings from that place and time. We could try to place him there. But if we don’t know even one place he went…it’s impossible.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “If he travelled under an assumed name, he did it with Hannibal, right?”

“Likely but not definitive,” Price said without looking up from his computer screen. No one spoke for a few moments, and Price finally looked up. “What? You said he was in hiding because he was afraid of Hannibal. Part of being in hiding is concealing your identity.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Okay, but stay with me here. If Will travelled under an assumed name, it was mostly likely with Hannibal for various reasons. One, Will wasn’t a fugitive, so why conceal his identity? Hannibal doesn’t have access to the same kinds of information as the authorities do, so a false identity wouldn’t be necessary to hide from him, and it would make each and every border crossing stressful. Two, Hannibal has money and presumably criminal connections to get things like false passports that someone like Will wouldn’t have access to. Three, I don’t think Will would travel on his own.”

“Number three is pretty weak logic,” Price muttered. “But fine. What were you going to say?”

“If he travelled under an assumed identity, he did it with Hannibal, so it follows that if we know one place that Hannibal was, we can use Bureau methods to see if Will was there, too,” Jack said triumphantly.

“Yeah but we don’t know one place where Hannibal was,” Zeller said. “Yes, we know St. Petersburg, but we know he arrived there the day before, and we’ve already looked for evidence he was with someone. He wasn’t. He had some business at the Hermitage, and then he was caught trying to buy a ticket to the Azores Islands. We already checked. Will wasn’t waiting for him there.”

“Holiday making aside, there’s not much to the Azores. I think he was on his way somewhere. He would have bought a ticket when he got there. Somewhere where Will might have been waiting. If we get him to slip up when he talks to Dr. Bloom—”

“—he’s not talking to Dr. Bloom. He’s not talking to anyone,” Price interrupted. He squinted. “And wasn’t finding out where Lecter was these last five years what we were already doing?”

Jack ignored the dig and grinned. “All we need to find out the truth about both Hannibal and Will is for Hannibal to start talking. When have either of you known Hannibal Lecter to stay quiet for an extended period of time? The man loves to talk. He did it for a living. He gave up being a _surgeon_ to talk and talk endlessly. He’s going to get bored, and he’s going to want to talk to someone. And when he does, we find out one specific period of time where he was in a specific place, and then, maybe we have them.”

“Have fun outwitting Hannibal Lecter,” Price murmured under his breath.

Jack was fairly certain Zeller snorted. Jack wondered if it was feasible to split the two of them up or if that would just make the snark spread far beyond the confines of their lab.

Jack consulted with Alana Bloom, and over the next few days, they came up with a plan to get Hannibal talking, and then when they were ready, Jack got comfortable in the surveillance room and Alana entered Hannibal’s holding cell.

She had given back Hannibal’s privileges soon after his capture in an effort to get him talking, but so far, no joy. Hannibal looked the same as ever, sitting at his desk in a familiar white jumpsuit, and moved with the same athletic grace. His hair was a little longer than usual—they’d let his cut grow out and now and then he pushed his hair out of his eyes as he read.

“How are enjoying your book?” Alana asked. She walked close to the containment window and stood with her hands clasped behind her back.

“It’s interesting to see the grappling thoughts of an inferior mind,” Hannibal said.

Was the book by Dr. Bloom? That might explain how taken aback she seemed by the comment. She recovered immediately, however.

“I can arrange to get you something else that might interest you more. But you need to engage with the therapeutic process. You need to make an effort.”

Hannibal put a bookmark in the book and closed it. “And what, in your estimation, is proof of making an effort?”

Alana smiled, a bit revealingly. She was encouraged by how Hannibal was responding to her. If this was Hannibal being communicative, maybe he had changed over the last five years. “I would like to you tell me about your crimes.”

“I gave thorough accounts of my crimes to the investigators when I was your guest here five years ago,” Hannibal said.

Alana’s eyebrows rose. “Are you saying that you haven’t committed any crimes since I saw you last?”

“You seem disappointed. Rather bloodthirsty of you. Or do you think me incapable of change?”

Alana crossed her arms and looked at the floor. “I think you’re probably more capable of change than most. But you don’t want to.”

Hannibal put the book on his table and mirrored her by crossing his arms, too. Mirroring is a sign of empathy, and in Hannibal’s case could only be learned or mimicked behavior. Learned behavior to make him seem normal was something Hannibal had not bothered with the last time he was staying at the hospital. He had cast off all those mannerisms and thoughtful comments he’d used previously to hide the fact that he a psychopath, because he didn’t need them anymore. So why was he doing it now? Was he trying to manipulate Dr. Bloom, or had he been spending a lot of time with an empathic person, enough to pick up certain mannerism without realising it?

“You sound bitter. Perhaps assuming a therapeutic role with someone you had such an intimate, longstanding personal relationship with is professionally unwise.”

“Real intimacy can’t be achieved if one party is lying to the other,” Alana said.

Hannibal pursed his lips. “There’s that bitterness again. It’s been nearly ten years, Dr. Bloom. Perhaps you need to take a step back. Let one of the other doctors have a turn.”

Alana smiled, and to her credit, it looked light, carefree, and genuine. “I’m very happy. Even if what you and I had _was_ real, it wouldn’t compare favorably to what I have with my wife and son.”

“I’m happy for you,” Hannibal said softly.

Alana seemed out of sorts at the response, but moved to the side of the room and dragged a chair over and sat down. “I’d like you to tell me about what you’ve been doing these past five years.”

Lecter’s expression didn’t change. “I’m sure you would. But I assure you, it would do me no therapeutic good, so it would only be for your amusement.”

Alana tilted her head. “I know it must be a long time since you’ve worked as a psychiatrist, but you can’t have forgotten that patients often doubt the therapeutic value of treatments. That doesn’t mean they have no value.”

“I’m happy as I am.”

Alana’s eyes widened. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call yourself happy. I didn’t think happiness was possible for you. What made the difference?”

“I raised my own pigs. Your brother-in-law was right. They are special animals.”

Jack had no doubt this was just Hannibal making a dig at Alana, and her little chuckle seemed to indicate she felt the same.

She sighed. “Look, I need to say something for your report. You’ve been here more than a month and you’ve done nothing more than exchange pleasantries with personnel. For all the help you’re getting, you might as well be in prison.”

“So what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me something real that happened to you while you were away from here. If you really were happy, what made you that way?”

“Is sadness less real?”

“I don’t want to argue semantics. I want you to tell me something real.”

“What do I get in exchange for this favor?”

“What would you like?”

Hannibal moved some papers around and found a sheet of paper, and then put it in the drawer. Alana pulled out the paper, read it quickly, and then nodded. “I agree. You tell me one real thing, and I’ll get you these art supplies.”

Hannibal smiled slightly. “I had a wonderful time. Stayed up all night, which, as you will soon learn, or perhaps already learned after the birth of your son, becomes less fun the older you get. But this night, no one wanted to end. The conversation, the food, the music. And then we watched the sunrise over the mountains from my balcony.”

“We?” Alana asked.

“My houseguests and I.”

Alana crossed her legs carefully. “Does this mean you’ve learned to see people as more than just food? More than just toys for you to play with?”

“The night was perfect. If I repeated it—invited the same people back again, perhaps—it would pale in comparison. The third time it would be downright dull. If you kill your houseguests, you’ll never be tempted to invite them back and ruin the memory of that glorious first night.”

“So you killed them?”

Hannibal laughed softly. “I never said that.”

“What makes this dinner party more real than any of the others? Ones I might remember, for instance.”

“Because he was there.”

Alana paused. “Are you referring to Will Graham?”

Hannibal laughed loudly. “Will Graham?” he asked softly, his voice disbelieving. “What made you think of him?”

“There was speculation that he helped you escape. That you’d escaped and were somewhere together.”

Hannibal scoffed. “Yes, from the likes of Freddie Lounds. I would have thought you knew me better. Still, now that you mention him, it _would_ be nice to see Will again. Have you seen him?”

Alana shook her head. “Jack has. He’s around. If he came to see you, would you let him in? Should I put him on your visitor’s list?”

Hannibal grinned. “Of course. There’s no hard feelings between Will Graham and I. We have twin minds. Getting mad at him for trying to kill me is like trying to get mad at myself.”

“Most people are well-acquainted with being mad at themselves, Hannibal,” Alana said dryly. “Most of us understand what it is to feel regret.”

“Sounds like you have some things to discuss with your own therapist,” Hannibal murmured.

The conversation went on for a while, but there was nothing much more of substance said. Jack took the information and the tape of the conversation back to the lab.

Price’s eyebrows drew together. “So your lead is that he was in a place with mountains at some point in the last five years? Do you know how many places with mountains there are in the world?”

“I would concentrate on the most metropolitan cities with mountains. I can’t see Hannibal Lecter in a small town.”

Price sniffed. “He lived in Baltimore, which is close to big places but hardly a booming metropolis. And you’re convinced he was with Will. I can’t see Will in a city.”

“Just look for leads in places with mountains,” Jack said.

“So when you say leads,” Zeller said, “Are you talking about sighting of an urbane European man who gives dinner parties with strange tasting meat, or unsolved murders?”

“Start with murders that seem like the Chesapeake Ripper, and then work your way down to looking at the local opera fundraiser for pictures of Hannibal’s face.”

They agreed and got to work. They found some likely cases in nine cities, and set the interns to look through news articles in those nine cities for any evidence that Hannibal had been in any of those cities.

Alana reported more responses from Hannibal that gave them no more real clues than the first one, but set their interns working on various vague geographic clues. Meanwhile, Alana had asked Hannibal to help with a case. She hadn’t even had to say all the conditions that would have made him initially say no; he flatly refused.

Now Jack was up. He had to track Will down and try to get him to agree to visit Hannibal to get his help with a case. Jack had it all worked out…

But first, he needed to get Will to talk to him. Though he anticipated a week or two of phone tag, Will agreed to meet Jack again for coffee. Will chose the café; a hipster place about a half hour from the office that Jack had never been to.

There were a few guys playing board games at nearby tables, and synth pop blaring from the speakers. Jack absently listened to the words of the song as he scanned the room for Will. “ _Everyone’s got a secret to hide, everyone is slipping backward_ …” he saw Will at the back—he already had a coffee in front of him, so Jack went to the counter and ordered one for himself. As he waited, the chorus of the song blasted out “ _I put a pillow right on top of my head, but I killed for love, I killed for love, killed for love_.” First of all, what kind of song was this? Second, was this some kind of clue from Will? Was this and the Walter Sickert painting some kind of taciturn plea for help?

Or a taunt from a man who no one could prove was a killer?

Or more likely, just a coincidence.

Jack sit down at the table and Will looked up. “Hey Jack.”

“Good to see you, Will.” Will looked…expensive. From his haircut to his shoes, he looked affluent. Polished. No way had he been living in an Appalachian town fixing diesel engines all this time. Not unless it paid a lot better than Jack imagined.

“How are things?” Will asked.

Jack nodded. “Good, good.” He paused, strategically. “Are you sure you won’t come back to office and do a little bit of work for us?”

“That kind of work got me accused of being a serial killer. So no.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. Okay, I kind of expected that.”

Will frowned. “Is that why you wanted to see me?”

Jack shifted in his seat. He had to word this just right. “I was hoping you’d agree to write up a profile of this killer we’re after. Or at least look at the ones we’ve already drawn up. We’re getting nowhere.”

“But I already told you I wasn’t interested.”

“Well, I had a backup plan. One I’m reluctant to go forward with, but…it might be our best option.”

“What is it?” Will asked.

“Hannibal Lecter has also refused to help our office. I thought he might agree if you asked him.”

Will stared in Jack’s eyes. “You certainly feel no shame about asking too much of people, do you?”

“I know it might not be the most comfortable thing, seeing him again. But look at the victims,” Jack said. He pulled the patented Jack Crawford move of littering the table with pictures of murder victims covered in blood in grotesque poses. People rarely said no after that.

Will shuddered and pushed the pictures back to Jack’s half of the table. “I’ll talk to Hannibal, if you insist. But I’m not looking at any pictures of dead people.”

“Thank you Will,” Jack said.

Had Jack played it perfectly and asked in such a way that Will couldn’t refuse, or had Will agreed to see Hannibal far too easily? He hadn’t even asked if Hannibal had made any threats against him. Maybe he assumed that if Hannibal had, they wouldn’t ask Will to do this, or maybe he knew he was Hannibal’s favorite person because they’d been together this whole time.

Will agreed to see Hannibal the next day. The psychiatric facility scrambled to make sure the video and audio were set up and ready to record. They might have to watch these tapes dozens of times to look for clues they missed the first time they watched it, and Jack needed copies to show everyone at the lab.

Alana walked in first, Jack saw from the monitors. Hannibal flicked his eyes off the book in his hands but didn’t make any other moves until Will walked in behind her.

Hannibal stood and walked up to the glass. “Will. It’s good to see you again.”

Will crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing, looking at the floor.

“I take it you’re happy to have a visit from Will today?” Alana asked.

Hannibal smiled. “Nothing could be more welcome.”

Alana put a hand on Will’s arm. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said, and she left the room.

Hannibal put his hand on the glass and rested his head against it. “Will, don’t you want to say anything to me?”

“Jack asked me to ask you to look at a case for him.”

Hannibal laughed. “Jack sounds like a schoolchild with a crush. Did he give you a note to give me? Will you read my casefile? Check yes or no.”

“He showed me pictures to get me here.”

Hannibal ran a finger over the glass. “Anything interesting?”

“I didn’t really look. I’m done with all that stuff. I just thought I’d give asking you to do it a shot, in the interest of saving lives.”

Hannibal moved abruptly away from the window and walked toward his bookshelf. “If you really want to save lives, help him yourself. At least you know your motives are clear. I might do absolutely anything. Use the situation to my own advantage.”

“That’s Jack’s problem.”

“If he’d left you in the classroom, you might have taught an entire generation of recruits to think like you.”

Will rolled his eyes. “The world doesn’t need a generation of people like me.”

“I don’t know. It sounds adorable.”

Will sighed and cricked his neck. “Well, what do I tell Jack?”

“I’ll help him if you do it with me.”

Will shook his head. “No way. I might as well do it myself and save myself the pain of spending time with you if I have to profile with you in the end.”

Hannibal shot Will a side-eye and grinned. “But we both know you want to profile again. Really. And with me.”

“I don’t,” Will said defiantly.

“Fine,” Hannibal said. He moved across the room with the feline grace of a lion in a cage. “Then I’ll do it if you come and visit me.”

“Just once?”

“Just once a day.”

“No way. I have a life.”

“Do you?”

“Every two weeks.”

“Every other day.”

After some haggling, they managed to agree that Will would visit twice a week.

Jack was initially pleased—all the more footage to examine for slip-ups between them. But if they really were partners in crime, then he’d just given them an excuse to visit, and possibly plan a second escape.

It was just a risk they would have to take, although when he said as much, Price raised a good point:

“Why? Hannibal Lecter is in jail. Just don’t talk to him, or let Will talk to him. Problem solved. You always said you didn’t think Will was with Hannibal at all, or if he was, it wasn’t his choice. So just leave Hannibal in his plastic prison and throw away the key.”

“What if Freddie Lounds is right, and Will really is a killer?” Jack asked.

Zeller shook his head. “Haven’t we done all this before? I felt bad enough realizing I inadvertently helped Lecter set him up for multiple murders. I don’t want to accuse an innocent man again.”

Price rolled his eyes. “Oh like you’ve really been losing sleep over that.”

Jack held up a hand. “You’ve both seen the video. Any thoughts?”

Price nodded. “They don’t say anything suspicious, but the way they bicker over how much Will agrees to visit. It seems to speak of familiarity.”

Zeller nodded. “Yeah, they sound like an old married couple. But they always seemed to have a secret language between them. It doesn’t mean they’ve been together all this time.”

“Okay. Well, I suppose we should take a case to Hannibal now, because that’s ostensibly why we sent Will there in the first place. What’s a case you’d like some insight into? And do either of you want to be the one to take it to Hannibal, or should I?”

Price and Zeller looked at each other. It was Price who answered. “I don’t think giving him people he already knows is going to be helpful. I mean he’s going to manipulate the hell out of anyone he talks to, but why make it easier for him by giving people he knows information about?”

Jack’s eyebrows drew together. “I could get a recruit to just read him the file and take notes.”

Price winced. “So throw someone young and naïve at him? Seems like just as bad an idea. Maybe a worse one.”

Jack threw up his hands. “You don’t think I should send someone he knows, but also I shouldn’t send someone he doesn’t know. Who should I send, Price?”

Price made some excuse and left the room, and Jack realized he shouldn’t be taking his frustration out on his team. He promised himself he’d apologize to Price later, and went to work. He found a recruit that seemed like the type that Hannibal would respond to. A quiet, serious girl called Clarice Starling. He had her take the case files to Hannibal. He recorded their interactions, too, but he obsessed over Hannibal and Will’s sessions.

After five or six sessions, Alana gave her considered opinion that Hannibal and Will hadn’t been together. They had spoken at length a half a dozen times, and hadn’t given any real indication that they knew each other better than before.

Jack admitted he couldn’t find anything actionable, but there were little things. One time when they both spoke longingly about pasta primavera, or when they talked about loving the sound of church bells. Price and Zeller refused to research cities in the world with nice sounding church bells, and as a clue it was weak, but taken with everything else, Jack was becoming convinced that they had been together. There was a moment when they hadn’t had anything to say to one another and they’d just quietly sat there, looking at each other. Jack rewound that part about ten times, not sure what he was seeing. After the eleventh viewing, he realized they reminded him of himself and Bella, sitting together on a quiet evening.

That was not a welcome thought.

Jack had never considered that they might actually be romantically involved. That Freddie Lounds might have actually been on to something with the murder husbands thing. They’d both only been with women before, at least that he knew about. The thought made Jack look at all their interactions up until now in another light. Could it be Hannibal had been trying to ‘help’ Will all along—maybe not help him in a conventional sense, but help him to become more like Hannibal, so Will would, could, love him back as he was? Trying to train him to be a good murder husband. Somehow it was grosser to Jack than Hannibal just torturing Will because he was a sadist. Well it would be gross if a man did the same thing to a woman, wouldn’t it?

But then that moment had been…happy. Companionable. Was it still disgusting if Will loved him afterward? Or could it be called love if it you could also describe it as Stockholm Syndrome?

Jack guessed it made a difference if Will went with Hannibal willingly. If he went away, knowing the kind of control Hannibal required from his partner, well, maybe it was on him. And anyway, he wasn’t trying to judge their romantic choices.

He was trying to stop murderers.

The case they’d asked for Hannibal’s help on was one that had them stumped but not panicked over. With their methods, they’d find a chink in the killer’s armor eventually. But the governor of Missouri, the state where the bulk of the murders had taken place, was panicking. She wanted to be known as a law and order governor, and she wanted to find the man hunting down young girls. The press had dubbed him the Kansas City Killer, and she wanted to show the rest of the country she could handle the threat. Jack tried to tell her that serial killers weren’t something you could fight just by working hard and throwing resources at a problem, but she was convinced there was more she could do. She’d struck up a bizarre kind of friendship with Hannibal, and had somehow been persuaded by him that he needed to be present in her state during the police investigation.

So now they were planning to transfer Hannibal to Kansas City. Without Jack’s say so.

“Fuck my life,” he muttered. He should just wash his hands of the entire thing, but he _knew_ these people. He knew that Hannibal was capable of escaping under these circumstances, with law enforcement officers who didn’t know his tricks responsible for holding him. Ted Bundy had jumped out of the second floor of a courthouse and escaped custody, and Hannibal was a lot smarter than Bundy.

He called the governor and asked to personally supervise the transfer. Because he was a masochist like that.

Will knew about the transfer. Hannibal had mentioned the details to Will in order to let him know he didn’t have to visit for a week or so.

Jack worried about this. “What if Will does something crazy? What if he tries to help Hannibal escape somewhere on route?” he asked Alana.

Alana laughed lightly. “Are you still on that? Will comes here, reluctantly, every week in order to persuade Hannibal to help you with cases. How much more goodwill does he need to show?”

Jack walked over to the conference room window and looked out. “What if they just wanted an excuse to be together? What if they missed each other, but they couldn’t admit it because it would implicate Will in whatever Hannibal was up to all this time?”

“Will was cleared of being a serial killer, remember?”

Jack had a sudden, clear memory of Will trying to convince him that Hannibal was a serial killer. He’d given all his reasons, and they made everyone think Will was the crazy one. If Jack added up all the pieces of the puzzle and said them out loud, he’d sound crazier than Will had. Jack felt a pang of sympathy for the man Will had been. What might have happened back then, if Jack had believed him? Alana wouldn’t believe Jack any more than she’d believed Will. She wasn’t the type of person to change her opinion on someone without good reason. And he’d already shown the cracks in his reason too much to persuade Price and Zeller he was objective about any of this.

He would just have to keep his reservations about Will to himself. But also find a way to take Will out of the picture when Hannibal was out of the state. He didn’t want him attacking the motorcade, after all.

Jack thought about a good way to sideline Will, and finally he came up with one. But he’d need Will to agree. He pulled Will aside as he left the State Hospital one day, and asked to speak with Will before he left. They sat on a bench outside the facility.

“Will,” Jack started out, pausing to search for the right words. “You and I know Hannibal Lecter better than most. I know him better than most, and you know him much better than I do.”

Will shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

Jack sighed. “You know this governor is obsessed with the idea of going to any lengths to deal with this serial killer. I know Hannibal told you that they’re transferring him to Missouri to consult with the local PD.”

Will frowned. “How does this relate to how well I know Hannibal Lecter, exactly?”

“You know his tricks. You know who he really is. You won’t be fooled by that veneer of politeness that gets everyone—hell, you know it got me. I need you, Will.”

Will laughed bitterly. “I’m pretty sure that polite veneer stopped fooling people when he was convicted of multiple murders and cannibalism.”

“I don’t trust outsiders,” Jack said. He huffed out a breath. “I’ll be there, but I can’t watch him every second. I don’t want you to supervise the transfer—I just want you to make sure everyone there is doing the best damned job they can. Will you do that for me, Will?”

Will looked in Jack’s eyes shrewdly. “I remember what it was like, when I was the one trying to convince everyone Hannibal was bad. To know deep inside that he’s going to outsmart people. That he’s going to get away, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Is that a yes?”

Will nodded. Jack made plans for the transfer, and tried not to see Will’s final words to him that day as a threat, or a promise.

The day of the transfer was sunny but frigid, and Jack pulled his jacket collar tighter around his neck.

He looked over at Will, who looked back nervously. “How big a security breach is it that Freddie Lounds published our travel plans this morning?”

Jack swore. “We probably should have cancelled the trip—but no one would be able to put a plan together to help Hannibal escape at the last minute. It’s just impossible. With your help, we’ll get him there, and then we’ll get him back again.”

Will shivered. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Hannibal had been strapped to an upright table, and was wearing the mask the press loved to show him in. Maybe it seemed inhumane to the general public, but he’d bitten too many people for Jack to risk transferring him without it. Orderlies rolled Hannibal down the wheelchair ramp towards the open van where Jack and Will waited.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. Jack pulled his weapon and looked at the orderlies, trying to see who the sniper had hit, if anyone. Everyone hit the ground, but here was no cover. In spite of that, no more shots were fired. Then Will Graham slumped to the ground, gasping for air.

“Will! Will! Jack, let me out of this thing!” The voice, of course, was Hannibal. His voice held a desperation Jack had never heard in it before.

One of the orderlies knelt down and applied pressure to the wound on Will’s side.

“We’re beside a hospital, there’s tons of doctors who can treat him.”

“There’s been shots fired. The facility will go into lockdown,” Hannibal said calmly. “They won’t be able to help Will.”

Now he mentioned it, Jack could hear the faint whirl of an alarm sounding. The majority of the marshals who had been assigned to move Hannibal, and Jack’s team of FBI agents he’d handpicked for the trip were inside getting briefed by Alana Bloom for how to handle Hannibal. They were trapped inside, where they couldn’t help.

“Jack, whatever you think of me, I would never let Will die. You hear that gasping? He has fluid on his lungs. If we do nothing, he’ll drown in his own blood. I can help him, but you need to get me out of this contraption. And you need to do it now.”

Without thinking, Jack started unstrapping Hannibal from the board. He started with his hands, and then Hannibal helped him, and then Hannibal was free. Jack half-expected Hannibal to attack him, but he knelt quickly and consulted with the orderly, asking for a knife and a bic pen. The man ran to a nearby car and grabbed a first aid kit. Hannibal ran a hand over Will’s forehead—tenderly—and felt along his rib. When the orderly returned, he opened it up and handed Hannibal a knife and a piece of tubbing. Hannibal made an incision between Will’s ribs, inserted the tubbing, and then blood spurted out, and before Jack could even start to be scared he’d killed Will after all, Will took a deep breath and woke up.

He reached up and put a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “Bėgti,” he said. He repeated it again.

“What’s he saying?” Jack asked.

Hannibal looked up, distracted. “I don’t know. Probably nonsense. He stopped breathing there for a minute. Thank you for letting me help him.”

“I called an ambulance,” one of the orderlies said.

Jack glared. “You can’t do that, there’s a sniper out there.”

“He’s not shooting us. He’s had ample time. He wanted to shoot that guy, and he did,” the orderly said.

“That’s not protocol!” Jack shouted. “You could get the ambulance driver killed.”

But the ambulance was already coming in the drive. Jack ran up to the driver’s window. The driver, a pretty Asian woman, smiled brightly. “I heard you had an accident? You’re lucky you called when you did, we were at Ruby’s dinner for breakfast, just down the road. Well is it breakfast when you’ve been on shift all night?”

“It was a gunshot. Active shooter. You should get out of here, now.”

The driver looked over at the spot where Will lay. “Load him up.”

The driver and the guy in the back loaded Will on the stretcher, and then they drove off. Jack turned to Hannibal and,

“Where’s Hannibal?” Jack asked. “Did you already put him in the car?”

The first orderly cringed. “He gave me this look, and said I’d been really helpful giving him the first aid kit so he wouldn’t eat me. Just my entire family. Unless I let him go.”

Jack turned to the second orderly. He put his hands up. “I ain’t tangling with that. I was told there’d be like twenty-five cops along for the ride when I agreed to this.”

He ran around the building, looking for something that would show where Hannibal was or what he was doing, but he saw no sign. No tracks. No trace. Nothing.

He turned to the orderly with the first aid kit. “What was that that Will said? Do you remember? Begoti or something?”

“It was bėgti,” he said.

Jack held up his phone and said, “Siri, what does bėgti mean?”

Siri answered, “Bėgti sounds like the Lithuanian word for run.”

Jack was already dialing the office. “Get an APB on an ambulance that just left Baltimore State Psychiatric facility. The people inside are considered extremely dangerous. Suspects are Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, and an unknown Asian woman, and an unknown white male.”

After a flurry of activity, alerting most of the eastern seaboard, and reluctant calls to his superiors he dreaded having to make, Jack had to admit defeat. Hannibal had escaped, and since the ambulance had never arrived, it seemed certain that Will wouldn’t be seen again either.

The next day Jack went Hannibal’s cell and looked through it to find anything that could pass for a clue. There was nothing. The next time he heard anything about Hannibal and Will, it was by way of the Missouri governor, who’d called to apologize for causing Jack a shit-storm. She promised she’d use her influence to shield Jack from the negative consequences of losing Hannibal Lecter once again.

“But I don’t regret calling on Hannibal Lecter, no sir,” she went on.

“Why is that, exactly?” Jack asked.

She laughed. “A man the police have confirmed had jewellery that belonged to the victims of the Kansas City Killer was found dead, horrifically murdered. The killer—the killer of the killer—left a note. It’s not being shared with the press, but I’ll send you a picture of it. Is this number okay for that?”

Jack agreed, and they hung up. With shaking hands, Jack opened the text, which was a handwritten note that said, “Sorry I had to run, Jack. But I left you this gift to remember me by.”

Jack couldn’t tell if the handwriting was Will or Hannibal’s. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just going to assume that Hannibal has some kind of normal, non-calligraphy handwriting style that he uses when not being fancy and dramatic so that final line makes sense, okay? Cool. 
> 
> I used Google translate for my Lithuanian, (and I have no idea if Siri would recognize that word but oh well) so if it's the wrong word, feel free to tell me and I'll change it.


End file.
